The Booth
by waknatious
Summary: "Stop it! Just stop. I can't stand to see you with that rum-besotted pig of a man, and I don't want you to go home to him. I want you to come home with me. How much I've had to drink has nothing to do with this. Am I slurring my words? Do I seem incoherent or 'out of it' to you? Please tell me if there is anything I can do to get through your thick skull how I feel about this."


**The Booth**

"Come home with me."

She was so lost in thought she barely heard it, and she didn't think about the tone of the voice or where it had come from. It was a warm, weird night in here anyway, with overtones and undertones of loneliness, desperation and... well, other private things. It didn't seem out of place to hear that coming from a booth behind her. _Weird night._

Emma stood looking at the half-emptied pool table in the dim light, the cue resting on the floor, held in both hands before her at chest level, her elbows at her side. No one had bothered her all evening, which was just as well; she wasn't feeling very sociable. Dressed in just jeans and a sweaty, plain, off-white tank top, her hair flat and oily from the long day, she'd really just come here to be alone anyway. Her red leather jacket was draped over a backless swivel bar stool behind her to the right, and she decided to just sit down for a while. She backed up a few steps and did so, leaning forward on the cue and resting her chin in the crook of her elbow with a sigh.

Killian would want her back at the house by now, but seeing as how he was the whole reason she was here by herself in the first place, she wasn't in a hurry to get back there. That man could drink. Boy could he. Emma was no slouch and Ruby was the only one in their circle who could keep up with her (she suspected Granny could too, but couldn't think of a circumstance where that would come up) but Hook could make it look like he was just trying to stay hydrated. Like it was nothing. "High-functioning alcoholic" was probably an apt description for her boyfriend. _Awesome_ , she thought silently to herself, with another sigh.

Well... 'awesome' until he got mean. Or weepy.

Tonight he was weepy. And for some reason feeling sorry for himself. It was really kinda gross and she just wasn't up to placating him tonight or trying to boost his ego. Sex was right out – the man smelled like the floor of a distillery this evening and he'd probably just pass out before she got anything out of it anyway. No thanks.

So here she was. The bug was parked outside and she eventually had to drive home... _Ugh..._ so a glass of oaked coffee porter sat mostly untouched in the nearby half-circle booth.

Oh. Her beer. The voice had come from the booth so someone was sitting with her beer. That could be awkward given the line of conversation she'd half heard a moment ago. Probably best to retrieve and relocate the beverage now before someone accepted or rejected that smoky invitation.

She straightened up with another louder sigh, pivoted on her right foot toward the darkened booth to her left... and -

"Smoky" made sense now suddenly. A pair of smoldering chestnut orbs were glued right to her, and Emma stopped halfway to a standing position.

"Regina," she said, wearing her wide-eyed-slightly-panicked-oh-crap-what-do-I-do-now face that Henry loved to laugh at.

Regina looked to be at the end of her rope. Well... pffft... still absolutely amazing, not a thing out of place, still dressed from work obviously, in her white button up blouse with the wider collar, not the narrower one she'd worn last Thursday. _Wait, what? Oh whatever._ But the sleeves were rolled up in a very un-Regina-like fashion (not two perfect folds just below the elbow) and her gray suit jacket matching the skirt Emma couldn't see but knew was there, was literally in a heap on the corner of the resin- topped table next to Emma's beer. Her eyes were dark and tired, but intense.

This couldn't be good.

Emma finished standing up, took three quick steps to the booth and slid along the vinyl seat into the right side of the paneled enclosure, coming to a stop next to the brunette and resting her hand on her arm. "Hey..." she said in her best attempt at a supportive tone.

Regina started at the suddenness of the movement and the physical contact. She winced and gasped quietly, withdrawing her arm from the table and clasping her hands in her lap.

"Oh. Hey, sorry," said Emma. "I... you looked... are you okay?"

"Am I okay?" asked Regina, looking a bit incredulous that _that_ was the question, the reaction she'd gotten. Her brown eyes were wide, her pupils dilated in the dim light, darting back and forth somewhat desperately between the green ones before her. Left, right... left, right... searching for something.

Emma could smell the wine now. There was no glass, no bottle in sight, which meant that Regina had already stopped for the evening, and knowing how much vino this woman would put away in a session before feeling it... well, she'd been here a while. _Why do I have such a thing for drinkers?_ she though silently to herself. _Wait, what? Oh whatever._ She must've really been out of it when she came in to have walked right by and set her beer down here without noticing the booth was occupied. And by Regina no less.

 _God damn pirate. Ugh..._

Regina arched her right hand over her eyebrows and let out a low, shuddering breath, then shifted her weight to begin exiting the left side of the booth.

"Wait! Regina, yeah, I'm asking if you're okay. You're sitting here obviously upset and if I'm right, kinda bombed, and you just..."

Regina stood up and looked back at the blond helplessly. Her shoulders dropped slightly as she maintained the eye contact but noticed that Emma had paused. Her bottom lip threatened to quiver but she reined it in quickly.

"...just asked me..." Emma's wide eyes came right back, but softened again almost immediately. "You asked me to come home with you," she said in a rush of breathy realization.

"Yes, Emma, I did," Regina said, and simply waited for a response. After a moment she seemed to tire of the girl's gaping, silent stare and reached down to retrieve her jacket. She kept her eyes down while she folded it neatly. She draped it over her hands, clasped them beneath, straightened her posture, and met Emma's hesitant green eyes again, her jaw set.

"Do you mean like 'drive me home I'm hammered,' or more like 'Swan, you big stud, take me to bed or lose me forever'..."

"Emma!"

"Regina I'm sorry, I don't know what you want from me here. I..."

"How could you not?" asked Regina. "Emma, 'Come home with me' seems like a very clear request." She turned her face away briefly and squeezed her eyes shut, causing a tear to escape and sprint headlong for her cheek. She wiped it hurriedly away and rolled her eyes at herself, wrapping her arms around her middle with a sound of frustration (both at herself and the blond idiot.)

"R'gina you've been drinking, and I d-"

"Stop it! Just stop. I can't stand to see you with that rum-besotted pig of a man any longer, and I don't want you to go home to him. I want you to come home with _me_. How much I've had to drink has nothing to do with this. Am I slurring my words? Do I seem incoherent or 'out of it' to you?" she snapped. "Please tell me if there is anything I can do to get through your _thick skull_ how I feel about this. About us. Once we've cracked that, you can admit to yourself how _you_ feel about it, and we'll talk about that too." She was now done being emotional about this. She put on her best Mayor Face™ and crossed her arms, resisting the urge to tap a foot impatiently on the floor.

Emma didn't react. Not her eyes, not her body language... nothing. She met Regina's gaze and held it unflinchingly. Those were some bold words.

Regina took a deep breath, looked at the ceiling, sighed, and softened again. "Emma I need more from you." she said, and closed her eyes momentarily. "God that sounds so selfish, when you've given me so much already." She gave Emma a small smile and moved to sit. Emma made room next to her, but her eyes went to her drink, now held firmly in both hands, and stayed there. Regina slid into the right side opening of the booth, reached out and rested her hand on Emma's left arm. She waited a moment for the contact to register but it didn't, so she continued.

"Emma. We're going to talk about this. We have to. We've been dancing around it since Neverland and now you've canceled three lunches in the last two weeks. I've been h-"

"'It' Regina? 'It'? What are you saying IT is?" asked Emma, finally looking up. Wow, there was a lot going on behind those brown eyes right now... she looked away again, and quickly.

"Us," said Regina. "I'm talking about us. This," she said, gesturing between them. "The way things are between us. You and I both know we're moving past 'just friends,' in spite of your entanglement with Captain Jones. You are on my mind day in and day out and I know I'm on yours. You eat your lunch in my office every time you have a day shift. You bring me coffee almost every day as well. You held my hand between the car and the grocery store last weekend when we were out of Kraft Singles in the middle of the day and you just had to have them for your grilled cheese. You kissed me on the cheek when I relented and let you ride the shopping cart back to the car." She gently removed Emma's left hand from her glass and entwined their fingers. "This is almost domestic, and it feels some days like I could just ask you to move in with Henry and me," she smiled softly down at their hands, "and, the fact that you can't keep your eyes off me, well." She smiled almost shyly and looked up to Emma, whose gaze had softened considerably and was now finally centered on her. "You look at me a lot Emma, and it affects me... a lot. It's very intense - like you're memorizing me. It gives me goosebumps sometimes."

"Well, you look really nice all the time, like god who could be so well-put-together every hour of every day? Like even your yoga-slash-jogging outfit y-"

"Which one?"

"The black stretchy two diagonal orange stripes one, with the white and orange Nike shirt."

"Hmm, what day was that?"

"Tuesday morning. Bright orange Brooks Glycerins too."

"I see," she said with a slight smirk, "Actually they were ASICS Gels; the blue ones are Brooks, dear. And what else can you tell me about me on Tuesday?" She let Emma have her hand back.

"You wore the black three piece pants suit with the white piping on the lapels; the one where the vest is pinstriped under the jacket."

"Mm-hmm. Shoes?" she asked somewhat bemusedly.

"Black pumps," Emma responded easily, "and your hair was loose; the center-part deal, where you have to tuck it behind your ear all day long and make me crazy..." She closed her eyes and leaned back into the vinyl semicircle. "Oh." she said quietly. Her skin felt suddenly cold, and the rush of fear vertigo showed her the cliff at which she'd been standing for longer than she knew.

"Emma that was four days ago, and you remember it as if you're looking at me right now," she said earnestly. "Look at me."

Emma didn't look; she tried to steady her breathing and her racing heart, her eyes still closed. "Yeah, the butterflies and goosebumps. I know." She shook her head at herself.

"Emma look at me."

She didn't.

"Emma."

She looked. She realized. She didn't want to though – she was afraid. "Regina I -"

"Stop it, Emma Swan. What do you want? I've told you what I want. What do _you_ want?" Regina fixed her with that smokey gaze again, firm but kind this time, slid closer to the blond and rested an arm on the rim of the seat behind her. So close now, brown eyes searching green ones with anticipation, looking for an answer she hoped was coming.

"You're really not going to let me out of this are you," asked Emma. She tilted her head back again, which ended up resting her left cheek on Regina's ample bicep. She sighed softly and stayed there, looking into the brunette's eyes, which met hers with determination.

"No, I'm not," said Regina resolutely. But Emma's proximity and the feel of the woman's soft cheek against her bare arm felt like electricity coursing through her center and out into her fingertips and toes. Her eyes darkened and her thighs involuntarily clenched and unclenched as her body began to betray her cool resolve. She had to press on before she turned into a quivering mess. "I'm going to kiss you now. Okay?"

 _Well, that was sudden_. Emma's heart instantly felt like it was going to embarrass her it was beating so hard. She swore she could hear it thumping against her rib cage. In truth, Regina could see the pulse racing at the blond's neck; she gently cupped it with her left hand, lightly caressing the throbbing artery in small movements with her thumb. She smiled at Emma. That breath-taking, world-stopping, car crash-inducing smile.

Emma melted, and it was all over for her. "Okay," she said, in a voice so small she wasn't sure if she'd actually uttered the sound, and if she had, if it could even be heard above her heart crashing away inside her chest. Her eyes moved from Regina's eyes to her mouth, her pupils dilating. Regina had the upper hand here; she was going to decide how this part went, and Emma found that she didn't mind that at all right now.

"Okay," said Regina, smiling, and her eyes moved down to Emma's mouth too as she closed the distance between them.

Their lips met and Regina's heart immediately decided that it needed to catch up and match pace with Emma's. A sound that might have been a bit of a whimper escaped Emma's throat as their lips slid delicately together. Regina moaned quietly but deeply, and the vibration of it roared through Emma like wildfire causing a small, sharp intake of breath through her nose. Regina paused but didn't pull back, and after a moment renewed her ministrations to Emma's lips. She used her thumb to make a few more light circles at her pulse point but then moved her hand up to slide her fingers into a handful of blond hair and gently scrape her nails at the back of Emma's scalp.

"Oh god R'gina..." Emma mumbled through their locked lips, not wanting to pull back either.

"Shh... yes..." said Regina, and pressed on.

The kiss stayed gentle and soft, exploratory but certainly not hesitant, no tongues, just a deep open-mouthed kiss that melted away time and space. The world and the bar and the room disappeared. Everything receded until it seemed like the two of them were suspended in free fall in their little vinyl and wood paneled capsule. The only things that mattered or even really existed were lips and breath and and arms and fingertips. Heart rates slowed. Breathing evened out to a comfortable rhythm between them, occasionally accented with quiet moans and gentle sighs of contentment. Neither of them was sure how long they'd been kissing, but Emma began to slowly run her hand up and down Regina's upper arm and whispered "Gina..."

"Hmmmm?" More kisses.

"I'm getting dizzy," Emma giggled.

Regina pulled back just far enough to rest her forehead against Emma's and sighed a heavy sigh, cupping the blond's face gently, her eyes still closed. "C'n-" she cleared her throat lightly when her voice didn't really work on the first try, "Can we just stay in this booth forever?" she mused huskily. She didn't sound like she was even kidding, and still didn't open her eyes.

"Is that what you want?"

"Actually no, I already told you what I want." She opened her eyes then and looked deeply into Emma's. "And what do _you_ want?"

Emma smiled lazily through her kiss-drunk stupor. "I want you to come home with me."

"Really? Come home to you and the drunken sailor?"

Emma made an awful face and slumped back into the vinyl, her hands moving up to cover her face. "Oh my god... Hook," she muttered through her hands. Way buzz kill.

"He's probably asleep, and we'll deal with him tomorrow. You're coming home with me," said Regina, squeezing a possessive hand on Emma's left thigh.

Emma side-eyed Regina hard. "Ugh," she breathed sullenly, "I'm not this kind of person."

"And what kind of person is this, Emma?"

"A two-timer," she said miserably and raked her fingers through her hair, looking at her hand and making a face at how gross and sweaty it felt. She replayed something in her head... "We?" she asked.

"Yes, 'we.' We will deal with Captain Guyliner tomorrow."

Emma chuckled. "He soooo hates it when you call him that," she chuckled again and snorted, eliciting a grin from Regina. "And the day he noticed that Snow had picked it up he looked positively _wounded_." She smiled, and her hands idly spun the glass before her in a few circles. "But seriously," she continued, her mirth quickly disappearing, "when today started he and I were living together. That's not nothing. I can't just step out one evening and never come back. That's super shitty."

Regina folded her hands in front of her and rested her chin on them, leaning her elbows on the table. She seemed to contemplate a few different responses and dismiss them individually. Emma was staring at the table too, and reached up to rub a few absentminded circles on Regina's back with her left hand as they sat in silence. She idly spun the beer glass again with her right, looking more past it than at it.

Regina came back to the moment, having decided how to proceed apparently, and sat up. "That speaks well of you Emma, and your generous sense of empathy is what gave me a chance to be who I really was... showed me what real, unselfish love was." Her eyes snapped shut and she looked like she was fighting back a sob. She took a shuddering breath and blew it out through pursed lips, fanning her face. "Sorry," she said, glancing at Emma who smiled kindly, and continued. "But Emma, sometimes you take the Savior thing too far. Maybe unintentionally, because despite the title maybe that's just who you are, but you give and you give and you give... to them... to him..." She covered her mouth to stifle a sob as her eyes teared up again, "To me," she said in the tiniest voice. Her shoulders shook once as she failed to hold it in, and Emma quickly wrapped her arms around them, leaning her cheek against her shoulder blade. Regina reached up and squeezed Emma's forearm to her, letting a few more small sobs escape behind her other hand. "And now, as I said, I need more from you... I'm actually asking you to give me more of you." She shook her head. "I'm completely contradicting myself," she said through a tiny, shaky laugh, still peppered with small sobs.

Emma hugged a little tighter. "I think I know what you mean. It's okay."

"What I'm trying to say Emma, is that it's time for you to take something good for yourself and be happy with it. That's why I keep asking you what you want. I want you to take something for yourself now." She turned in Emma's embrace and looked once more into the depths of those big green eyes. "And I want that something to be me."

Emma leaned in. She brushed her lips over Regina's twice, savoring her warm breath. Pulling back briefly she studied Regina's face for a moment, just to be sure this was what she wanted and needed. Regina took Emma's hands and placed them on either side of her neck, returning the gaze. Emma deepened the contact then, kissing her deeply and sucking Regina's bottom lip lightly in between her own, eliciting a whimper. "Emma please come home with me," said the brunette shakily, but earnestly. Emma pressed herself to her, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her across the slick seat as far as she could into her side, almost as if to be one with her. She wrapped her other arm behind Regina's neck and completed the embrace, holding onto her with everything she had and moving her kisses to Regina's neck.

"Emmmaaaahh..." she breathed. "Please," she begged in a throaty whisper. "I need you, and this booth is not what I had in mind."

Emma stopped what she was doing. She released Regina, stood up, and retrieved her jacket from the bar stool off the end of the pool table. She walked toward the front door and paused at the booth, looking over her left shoulder at Regina who looked absolutely panicked. "The Bug or the Benz?"

Regina did a bit of a double-take, "Wh-what?" she asked, her chest heaving.

"Your car or mine? We're doing this, or not?"

"Yes I, um... my car..." she stuttered, seeming now to be unprepared for the fact that this was actually happening. "You... so, tomorrow we – we'll w-"

"Yes, we'll deal with him tomorrow. I'll send him a text later that he'll see in the morning."

 _In the morning_ – the phrase caused Regina to close her eyes momentarily to center herself. She shook it off, collected her purse and jacket, and slid out of the booth seat to stand before Emma. She took one of the blond's hands in her own. "Emma, y-"

"Look R'gina, this is a lot. This might actually be really stupid for us, I don't know. We're going to get in your car and drive to your house. Henry is still with David on the backpacking-fishing thing?"

"He is," she said, letting go of Emma's hand and clasping hers on the handle of her purse beneath her jacket.

"I don't know what's going to happen tonight, maybe I 'Come-Home-With-You'" she said with big air quotes "or maybe I just come home with you and we talk about this some more tomorrow, okay?"

"Yes."

"Okay," said Emma resolutely. She took Regina's hand and led them out the front door to the small parking lot.

The night had cooled finally and there was a light breeze that made things feel a little less warm and weird. The clean light of the single parking lot fixture was refreshing after the amber glow of the dive bar's interior. A few moths and other insects looped lazily around it. When they reached the Mercedes, Emma kissed Regina on the cheek, released her hand and walked to the passenger side of the car where she put a hand on the door and waited for her to unlock it. She gave Regina a small smile over the roof of the vehicle.

Regina smiled back, unlocked the car, and got in.

Emma stood for a moment with her left arm resting on the roof of the car. _Weird night,_ she thought to herself as she glanced around at the building and the handful of cars in the parking lot (including hers.) She smiled and shook her head lightly then got in the car too, closing the door with a solid thump.

This changed everything, and though she felt hopeful, she knew there was a long way to go.

 _To Be Continued..._


End file.
